


fine-drawn by sleeplessness

by ficklefic (Kendarrr)



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Insomnia, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 18:38:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16792501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendarrr/pseuds/ficklefic
Summary: Sabrina finds herself unable to sleep. Prudence has a couple of ideas for combatting her insomnia.





	fine-drawn by sleeplessness

The bed creaks for the tenth time that night with Sabrina huffing into her pillowcase. Surrounded by other peacefully-sleeping bodies, their even breathing fills her with languid jealousy. Jealousy over their loss, of no longer experiencing the burden of consciousness. Sabrina eyes the ceiling, all dark arches, much like looking up into the void. She blinks once and it’s as if the void blinks right back.

She turns to lie on her side, one hand tucked under her pillow. The occupant of the bed beside her dozes with a mouth agape, her sleeping gown hiked over the brown-silk thighs. The glass centre of the circular room allows the ghostly light of the moon to illuminate the witches she shares the dorm room with. Sabrina squeezes her eyes shut, waits a beat or two, and then lets out a growl of despair and irritation.

“At this rate, you won’t be the only one who won’t be able to sleep,” Sabrina hears a catty snarl, low enough that she hears. She turns her head and sees the silver glint of Prudence’s eyes a few beds away. She smiles and Sabrina thinks of the Cheshire cat’s conniving grin. “What did you piss off now, half-breed?”

“Bold of you to assume I did anything,” Sabrina mutters into her pillow and readjusts her position to have a better sightline with Prudence. “I just can’t seem to sleep. I didn’t even drink coffee today.”

Prudence raises her head so her temple rests on her palm, her arm in an angle while she lies on her side. “Maybe somebody cursed you awake.”

“Did _you_?”

“The matter of your existence is not only a blight _to me_ ,” Prudence snaps, her voice rising above the volume they established. Somewhere in the pile of sleeping girls, interrupted breathing made Prudence wince and double-check that they are not awake. “Since you’re such a bull in a china shop, who knows who you annoyed this time.”

“No one!” Sabrina declares, her frustration bubbling in her throat. She’s exhausted, having spent most of her hours in the Academy negotiating with the stares and that crippling tension of alienation. “I haven’t done anything, I haven’t spoken to anyone––other than you and your sisters, and Nick. So no, I don’t think I got cursed.”

For a moment, Prudence did not say a thing. Sabrina thinks she fell asleep, and so her frustration flares at the thought of being the only one awake _again_. Instead, in the darkness, the bed creaks and Prudence rose from her supine position. She stands over the foot of Sabrina’s bed like some creature ready to spirit her away. “Well, are you coming?”

“Coming where?”

“You ask too many questions,” Prudence declares with an arched brow. “To the kitchens. To solve this insomnia of yours.”

Much as Sabrina feels she ought to be wary of Prudence’s sudden desire to help, she also wants to sleep and lose consciousness, if only to forget the pressure of her existence––both to keep her witch blood and aunts proud while also maintaining this secret from the human side of her life. Sabrina scoots off her bed and, shivering from the cold contact of her feet to the floor, she tiptoes out of the circular room to follow Prudence.

Down a series of steps, Sabrina and Prudence slip into the kitchens of the Academy. More of a dungeon than anything else, the kitchens is dimly lit. The unstoked coals burnish the room with a mild glow. Inside, the air is thick and tickles the nose with the abundance of spices and herbs drying upon racks held aloft by a chain upon the ceiling. Prudence saunters around the shelf of bottled dried herbs, her eye trained on the leaves that to Sabrina look similar. She _knows_ out of principle that they don’t all have the same effects (also, aunt Hilda can prattle on about one type of herb for hours), but she never got the hang of herbal identification.

Prudence plucks three glass vials and moves on to boil a kettle for hot water. “This is how you know you don’t pay attention in class. Any witch or warlock quarter your age knows that valerian, chamomile, and lavender will send you to the realm of sleep in the easiest way.”

“You try going to two schools. I have no space left in my brain to remember American history and the witches’ side of it to do well in any exam, let alone remember all my herbs and spices.” Sabrina grumbles, plopping herself a bench by the firepit. She rests her cheek on her palm and scowls.

“Mortal history is based on lies,” Prudence says, casual as you please. “Don’t you remember Roanoke?”

“You say that as if you were there,” Sabrina jokes, but the look in Prudence’s eye denies nothing, nor did it actually reveal any truth.

“Mortals say that the colony is lost, that they all starved to death, died, or sought the help of the indigenous tribes,” Prudence says while conjuring seemingly from nowhere a china teapot and a cup that matches the ornate floral and gold trim designs of the pot. “But they were a coven, sent from the Old World to the New because the fanatics of the false god fear the power that they hold.” Looking up, her stern eyes lock with Sabrina. “Drink your tea.”

Sabrina swallows, peers into the amber liquid of the porcelain cup. “How do I know this is not another one of your attempts to harrow me––or kill me?”

Rolling her eyes, Prudence hops up on the kitchen counter, her chestnut legs peek from her lace nightgown. “Killing you by poison is the most boring way to go about it.”

Cradling the cup in both hands, Sabrina inhales in the heady aroma of the tea. She takes a sip, her upper lip curling against the hot water. “Thank you, Prudence.”

The girl merely shrugs and cleans up the utensils she used. “Finish that and go back to bed.” Her tone is bored, and she shoots Sabrina one lasting look before disappearing through the doorway. Sabrina smiles in delight at the sudden realization that maybe Prudence is going soft after all––most of all for her to be kind enough to make her tea. She downs the rest of the liquid, now cool enough to swallow. She rinses her cup and makes the trek back to the dormitories. In the darkness, she tiptoes to her bed and slides back under the covers, body now warm from the calming tea.

But to no avail. Though her eyes are heavy, her body and mind worn from the strains of the previous day, Sabrina’s consciousness refuses to dip. She kicks the blankets off her legs to cool her heated skin and scowls into the void of the darkness. It’s like the reverse of the Batibat, but there’s likely no magic involved––just her consciousness’ refusal to leave her be.

Slinking off the bed, Sabrina sneaks over to Prudence’s bed. She squats on the floor and peers into the sleeping girl’s face, smooth, calm, void of her usual stern self. “Prudence,” Sabrina whispers.

Turns out, she’s a light sleeper. Prudence’s eyelids open––first halfway, and then fully. “What now?” She murmurs, eyes closed once again. She settles onto her back, one arm draping over her eyelids. “Did the tea not work?”

“Clearly not, since I’m awake right now.”

“And _bothering_ me,” snarls Prudence.

Both remain at a standstill for a solid minute. With the heaviest of sighs, Prudence sweeps back her blanket as if pulling back a curtain or a cape. When Sabrina did not move, she cracks open an eye to look at her. “Well? Are you going to lie down or not?”

Sabrina stares at the moon glow that pools across the silk sheets of Prudence’s bed. What difference will it make, sleeping on someone else’s bed? Yet this might be better than stewing in her own grim thoughts in her own bed. At this point in the night, with the moon past its highest, Sabrina is willing to do anything just to get a wink of sleep. So she crawls into the space, her back towards the curve of Prudence’s side. Sabrina curls into a ball and Prudence throws the covers over her body with a chuckle. The heat that it brings, knowing that it’s Prudence’s own sends Sabrina into a stunned silence, unsure on whether to hate it or enjoy it. 

“I’d tell you to relax but I think you’re wound up so tight nothing will persuade you to loosen up.” Her words, warm against the nape of Sabrina’s exposed neck. The bone echo of her voice reverberates through the air, through that minimal space that separates them. Sabrina has never been more aware of another living person’s proximity to her own body. With Harvey, it was comfort––a familiar one that she grew into. But Prudence––it’s electric, a coiled spring.

Into the darkness, Sabrina stares. She doesn’t know what sleeping beside Prudence would do to her vividly awake brain. But when she feels the cool touch of Prudence’s fingertip against the middle space of her upper back, Sabrina shivers. Then she squirms to turn around and face Prudence, her features illumined by atmospheric lights. “Why are you suddenly so nice to me?”

“Four in the morning softens any witch, Sabrina.” Her voice, a sleepy, honeyed melody. The Prudence by daylight does not exist at that moment, minutes outside the witching hour. The bed creaks and the mattress shifts. Prudence’s mouth grazes against Sabrina’s head where her scalp ends and her forehead begins. She shudders.

“Still cold?”

“It’s not that. I…” Sabrina blinks and in the darkness, in the soporific warmth her eyelids become heavy. Within minutes, she falls asleep.

*

Sabrina has the presence of mind to return to her bed when she wakes early the following morning to spare her and Prudence the trouble of having to explain their position. She dresses out of her sleep clothes and hurries out of the dormitory to avoid any question or awkwardness that may arise from Prudence who now stirs from her own sleep.

Rubbing her eyes as the rest of the girls wake as well, Prudence notices Dorcas and Agatha giggling by the head of Sabrina’s bed. From there they pull out a talisman of some sort.

“Did you do anything to the half-breed again?” She asks without betraying anything in her tone and manner. The insult tastes less acidic on her tongue.s Prudence maintains the same curt brow, the same commanding gaze.

“Just a prank, sister.” Agatha says, holding up the talisman imbued with an insomniac spell. She approaches Prudence, grinning much like a cat with Dorcas in tow. She drops the talisman in Prudence’s palm.

“And it worked,” Dorcas reaches out, plucks a stray silver strand of hair from Prudence’s sleeping gown. “Did you sleep well, Prudence?”

The two of them smile––Prudence can’t decide whether to strangle them or bury them in the ground. Before she can say anything, the two grabbed hands to escape her wrath.

Prudence slumps back into her bed, face against the pillow. She inhales, and the scent she finds there is no illusion at all.

**Author's Note:**

> An Attempt. I haven't written fanfic in years (so it feels like). I just need this out of my system because I found canon Sabrina to be a dumbass lol.


End file.
